Pro-life groups call for rejection of Canadian bill posing potential threat to religious freedom

OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – Canada’s top pro-life advocacy group warned that a new Liberal bill aimed at so-called “hate speech” would in fact open the door to the “criminalization of religious expression and belief” when quoting the Bible. 

On Thursday, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) along with representatives from 4 My Canada, CitizenGo, and Campaign Québec-Vie stood together in Ottawa in a press conference to call out Bill C-9, known as the Combating Hate Act.

“In the name of combatting hate, Bill C-9 opens the door to the criminalization of religious expression and belief,” CLC communications director Pete Baklinski said during the press conference.

“While paying lip service to religion, Bill C-9 pulls the rug out from under people of faith.”

Baklinski warned that Bill C-9 is “not what it appears to be” after what he referred to as the “troubling” amendment added to the bill.

Baklinski noted how Liberal MP Marc Miller had said last year that certain passages of the Bible are “hateful” because of what they say about homosexuality, and those who recite the passages should be jailed. As reported by LifeSiteNews, he was appointed as a government minister by Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the bill, if passed, could potentially criminalize parts of the Bible about homosexuality.

Carney’s Liberal government recently passed amendments to the bill removing a religious exception that have been condemned by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, who penned an open letter blasting the proposed amendment and calling for its removal.

Conservative MPs have warned that Bill C-9 is a direct “attack” on religious freedom and would allow the “prosecution” of those who simply read certain passages of scripture in “good faith.”

CLC: Liberal bill a direct ‘threat, ‘not hate speech’

At the press conference, CLC campaigns manager David Cooke warned that the bill is a direct “threat” to Canadians’ freedoms.

“The Bible is not hate speech,” he said, adding, “Biblical teaching must never be criminalized, even apart from the issue of outlying religious speech that Liberals find offensive.”

“I oppose Bill C-9 for its unconstitutional and unjustified attempt at censorship,” he said, adding that the Liberal government, together with the Bloc Québécois, “aims to tighten the noose on our free speech rights.”

“With their support for Bill C-9 and its amendments, our God-given, Constitutional right to express our beliefs freely in good faith, a right that we all have enjoyed up till now, is in jeopardy,” he added.

Baklinski warned that Bill C-9, “creates a divided Canada” and called on Carney to drop the bill.

“Prime Minister Mark Carney, Minister of Justice Sean Fraser, on behalf of over 60,000 Canadians, we call on you to withdraw Bill C-9 in its entirety,” he said.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Bill C-9 has been blasted by constitutional experts as allowing empowered police and the government to go after those it deems to have violated a person’s “feelings” in a “hateful” way. The bill was introduced by Fraser last year.